Monster's den

[Skeletor]

http://biclopsgames.com/fullscreen.php?id=1

A coffebreak tactical rpg where you create a party of 4 heroes to explore dungeons.
There are 5 classes: warrior (good armor/weapon), cleric (heal, good armor), mage (bad armor, powerful ranged and close attacks), rogue (average fighter but some nice skills), ranger (strong ranged and close attacks).
Levelling up, every class can raise attributes and select a new skill/spell.

What's your strategy?
My best parties are (I'm obviously talking about the extreme difficult level ):

- Three wizards (intelligence at level up) casting incinerate and a cleric (intelligence at level up) behind them healing, reviving, casting holy light in big battles and smite against undeads.
Pros: three incinerate attacks per turn deal a huge amount of damage, and even if wizards have the worst armor, there are three of them to dissipate frontal attacks so it's not a big problem and against boss they can cast magic armor
Cons: incinerate needs a good staff to be effective, and with three wizards you'll probably never have them with a staff with the level they currently are;  furthermore the cleric is also not at full activity; his armor is useless and ofter he has to pass turn
edit: I just realized incinerate doesn't need a good staff, but it needs intelligence! hahaah, I'll try to put those points there next time

- One cleric (endurance) absorbing all damage, healing party and attacking with fervor and three rangers (strengh/dexterity) behind attacking with crossbows/bows (pin, rain of arrows) and spears (force of nature)
Pros: the cleric armor and ability is really useful, and three rangers have a great power attack (and also tactical due to the very handy pin attack); creature levels are also very easy with the hunter prowness ranger skill
Cons: I don't know, this is a very effective party

- Two rogues (endurance) attacking with create opening and instakilling enemies (with coup de grace) stunned by the pin attacks shot by the two bow/crossbow rangers (dexterity) behind them.
Pros: pin + coup de grace combo is really cool
Cons: two rogues in the front line are often not hard enough to resist enemies attacks; bosses are immune to instakill; most important, no cleric so the only heal spells are the ranger's balms and mediocre heal

A cool trick I usually try to use is to equip mass damagers (Wizards - electric bolts; Rangers - hail of arrows and somewhat Warriors - cleave) with poisoning weapons; poison damage add over time, and for example after a first turn when the level boss party take 3 hail of poisoned arrows, it will take a lot of damages at the start of every other turn.

[getter77]

I still need to get around to this game and the, supposedly, even better sequel.  IIRC, one of the main minds behind the series is now working on the Dragon Age: Journeys flash game series.

[Karzack]

I've played this and it's sequel on Kongregate.  I really couldn't get into it though.

[Skeletor]

Something I want to try:
Front line: cleric (endurance, armored, big shield)
Behind: three mages (intelligence, crappy equipment; electrical storms, power syphon)

This party completely solves the extreme-difficulty-level problem: no items found in dungeons.
Why? Because the Mage is the only class not equipment dependant. Every other class needs stuff to be powerful (aka weapons and armors). Mages damage with electrical storm is big and completely unrelated to their equipment.
So this party solves the big problem that playing at extreme you always have a party equipped with stuff from many levels ago.

[dweller]

Game looks good.
Too bad that I can't stand flash games.

[Skeletor]

There's a new version of Monster Den with 2 new classes (a light armored and tactical barbarian and an allies summoner conjuror) and 2 new game modes.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/garin/monsters-den-book-of-dread

Despite the new classes I keep being a fan of the warrior + cleric mage ranger formation

Too bad that I can't stand flash games.

Ditto, I hope the developer will release an executable version, even not free.

I love, love, love old style 100% tactical party crpgs!

[Skeletor]

In the third game mode (The fall of Tellunos) I'm managing to achieve very good results with this party:

Warrior#1 Warrior#2 Warrior#3
Cleric (behind warrior #3)

Warrior#1
Equipment: +quickness
Skills: overwhelm (very strong against big ones), bloodlust, adrenaline, leadership+6
Chars: 66% strenght (to better exploit overwhelm), 33% endurance

Warrior#2
Equipment: +"damage" (strenght, damage effects, etc)
Skills: cleave (being in the central column), bloodlust, adrenaline, leadership+6
Chars: 66% strenght (to better exploit cleave), 33% endurance

Warrior#3
Equipment: it's better to leave stronger weapons for the other warriors
Skills: bloodlust, adrenaline, leadership+7
Chars: 50% strenght, 50% endurance

Cleric
Equipment: +mana regenerarion
Skills: purify, anoint (pumping warrior#1 or #2 just before they perform their overwhelm/cleave attack), revive, benediction+6
Chars: 75% intelligence, 25% endurance (once he's dead, game over)


Basically warriors and clerics are the only ones who can use heavy armor, so this "waves" mode (no potions, no altars) is really eased.
Furthermore those double axe wielding warriors inflict huge damage further improved with their high chance leadership ability.
Three enemies in a row means a big cleave; bosses and big ones get immediately overwhelmed and this leaves them almost dead; warriors have no mana regeneration but manage to use bloodlust very often so not a big problem; cleric can cast a heal spell every turn without running out of mana, and even after a high consuming revive spell he comes back to full mana in just a few turns (and in the meanwhile he can still heal again). Being a pure healer, the cleric should have a censer. No "heal all" spell because too mana consumption for a 50% effect on every party member isn't worth it in my opinion. Since this game mode is an endless wave of enemies, party power up skills (adrenaline, purify) effects never expire (but if a character dies and gets revived he lose them). When everyone is at full hp, the cleric is still able to indirectly inflict great damage by casting anoint to the next warrior attacking: +75% damage is always good and exepecially when supporting a cleave or overwhelm attack. In the latter waves when there is only an enemy left you can cast anoint on warrior#1, then on warrior#2, then on warrior #3, and then again kill the last enemy with a smite spell so that the next wave will be much easier with three attacks (potentially including an overwhelm, a cleave and a power attack) already pumped.

Money could be not enough to buy everything, so sometimes I don't buy the cleric a mace, or someone doesn't get a ring/cloak but not a big problem. Everything else is essential, and warriors should be equipped with the most damaging weapons so probably they'll go with big axes (sometimes spears).

Generally those items enchantments aren't very effective and should be avoided:
- wearer retreats instantly
- damage reflection
- poison resistance (healing spell removes any poison, and eventually a purify spell will remove it from the whole party)
- health regeneration (the cleric can completely heal a party member every turn so a couple more hps every turn are rarely making a difference)

Attributes buffs are ok but not very effective.
Drain health could be decent for warrior #2 but no big deal.
Improving stun resistance is good but since full stun resistance is already granted by the adrenaline skill those items should be given only to the cleric.
Items with mana regeneration are essential for the cleric and good for the warriors (expecially #1 and #2).
Items with quickness bonus are essential for warrior #1 overwhelming skill but being this game mode turn sequence never resetted, completely useless for the other characters.
Thick armors and other armor bonuses are obviously good for everyone expecially for the cleric being the only one to revive fallen party members.
Stun and instakill effects are good for warriors (expecially #2), poison damage somewhat less but still ok.
Being unable to attack in melee range, and smite spell usually ignored (anoint is almost always more effective, even against undeads) the cleric mace damage and stun-instakill-poison-drainhealth bonuses are almost useless.


A little variant to this party is substituting warrior #3 with a mage.
Despite weak light armor, its "magic armor" spell is really effective (+40% damage resistance), "flickering flames" gives every party member a nice +100% damage reflection and being in the first row he can cast two powerful spells: very low mana consumpting incinerate and nasty ranged ensorcelled blade.
In this case, warrior#1 should be given the inspire skill to make the mage 20% more effective (this doesn't help non-melee cleric and neither the already 30% adrenalined warriors).

[corremn]

Love the game. A real find

[Legend]

FastCrawl is a stand alone non-flash game that is practically the exact same thing as Monster Den. I actually think it came out first.

[Skeletor]

FastCrawl is a stand alone non-flash game that is practically the exact same thing as Monster Den. I actually think it came out first.

Interesting, it looks very nice and I'll probably buy it.

Funny thing, I never tried that one because I always thinked it was a mongoloid version of Crawl!